Literature

I. THE

STORY OF AN HOUR

Kate Chopin (1984) Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as

powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that owuld belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they ahve a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being! "Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door." "Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shudder that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Some one was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained, composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife.

When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.

II. Summary: This short story is about an hour in the life of the main character, Mrs. Millard. She is afflicted with a heart problem. Bad news has come about that her husband has died in a train accident. Her sister Josephine and Richard who is her husband's friend has to break the horrifying news to her as gently as possible. They both were concerned that the news might somehow put her in great danger with her health. Ironically, Mrs. Millard reacts to the news with excitement. Even though the news is heartbreaking she is finally free from the depressing life she was living. She keeps whispering "Free! Body and soul free” She now is happy because she doesn't have to live for anyone but herself now. At the end of the story, Mr. Millard opens the door and is surprised by Josephine's cry. Mr. Millard didn't have a faintest idea about the accident. With a quick motion, Richard tried to block Mr. Millard's view of his wife but it was too late. The doctors said she died of a heart disease. The story ends with a short phrase "of joy that kills".

III. Educational Implications: Human nature — a nature shared by women and men — requires for its fulfillment a degree of personal development on the part of individuals. Such a nature is not fulfilled but grievously frustrated by an ideal of marriage under which both partners should strive to submit to what they perceive as the will of the other, and under which the achievement of such “joint personality” is a higher order of personhood than merely individual fulfillment. Buying into such a view of what “true marriage” is puts people into a cruel dilemma: either they have to think of themselves as defective persons (not fit for marriage, a condition for the achievement of a full life as a human being), or they have to suffer the pain of renouncing deep elements of their personality. If they are especially sensitive and scrupulous, they can live with this dilemma only by deceiving themselves into believing that they have needs that are inconsistent with this ideal. That ignorance of self is itself a high price to pay for accepting a view of what we should become that is so at odds with what we are. Like in being a teacher, it’s a two way process. Students will learn something from their teacher at the same time the teacher also learn something from their students-It’s a give and take relationship. So as a future teacher this kind of mentality will really help me not only to be a teacher but a Servant Teacher.

I. LOB’S

GIRL

Joan Aiken Nine years went by, and each summer Mr. Dodsworth came back to stay at the Fisherman’s Arms and call on his erstwhile dog. Lob always met him with recognition and dignified pleasure accompanied him for a walk or two – but showed no signs of wishing to return to Liverpool. His place, he intimated, was definitely with the Pengellys. In the course of nine years, Lob changed less than Sandy. As she went into her teens he became a little slower, a little stiffer, there was a touch of gray on his nose, but he was still a handsome dog. He and Sandy still loved one another devotedly. One evening in October all the summer visitors had left, and the little fishing town looked empty and secretive. It was a wet, windy dusk. When the children came home from school – even the twins were at high school now and Don was a full-pledged fisherman – Jean Pengelly said, “Sandy, your Aunt Rebecca says she’s lonesome because Uncle Will Hoskins has gone out trawling, and she wants one of you to go and spend the evening with her. You go dear; you can take your homework with you.” Sandy looked far from enthusiastic. “Can I take Lob with me?” “ You know Aunt Becky doesn’t really like dogs – Oh, very well.” Mrs. Pengelly sighed. “I suppose she’ll have to put up with him as well as you.” Reluctantly Sandy tidied herself, took her schoolbag, put on the damp raincoat she had just taken off, fastened Lob’s lead to his collar, and set off to walk through the dusk to Aunt Becky’s cottage, which was five minutes’ climb up the steep hill. The wind was howling through the shrouds of boats drawn up on the Hard. “Put some cheerful music on,do,” said Jean Pengelly to the nearest twin. “Anything to drown the wretched sound while I make your dad’s supper.” So Don who had just come in, put on some rock music, loud. Which was why the Pengellys did not hear the truck hurtle down the hill and crash against the post office wall a few minutes later. Dr. Travers was driving through Cornwall with his wife, taking a late holiday before patients began coming down with winter colds and flu. He saw the sign that said STEEP HILL. LOW GEAR FOR 1 1/2 MILES. “What a narrow, dangerous hill! But the cottages are very pretty – Oh, Frank Stop, stop! There’s a child, I’m sure it’s a child – by the wall over there!” DR. Travers jammed on his brakes and brought the car to a stop. A little stream ran down by the road in a shallow stone culvert and half in the water lay something that looked, in the dusk, like a pile of clothes – or was it the body of a child? Mrs. Travers was out of the car in a flash, but her husband was quicker. “Don’t touch her, Emily!” he said sharply. “She’s been hit. Can’t be more than a few minutes. Remember that truck that overtook us half a mile back, speeding like the devil? Here, quick, go into that cottage and phone for an ambulance. The girl’s in a bad way. I’ll stay here and do what I can to stop the bleeding. Don’t waste a minute.” Doctors are experts at stopping dangerous bleeding for they know the right places to press. This Dr. Travers was able to do, but hr didn’t dare do more; the girl was lying in a queerly crumpled heap, and he guessed she had a number of bones broken and that it would be highly dangerous to move her. He watched her with great concentration, wondering where the truck had got to and what other damage it had done.

Mrs. Travers was very quick. She had seen plenty of accident cases and knew the importance of speed. The first cottage she had tried had a phone: in four minutes she was back, and in six an ambulance was wailing down the hill. Its attendants lifted the child into a stretcher as carefully as if she were made of fine thistledown. The ambulance sped off to Plymouth – for the local cottage hospital did not take serious accident cases – and Dr. Travers went down to the police station to report what he had done. He found that the police already knew about the speeding truck – which had suffered from loss of brakes and ended up with its radiator halfway through the post office wall. The driver had a concussion and was in shock, but the police thought he was the only person injured- until Dr. Travers Told his tale. At half past nine that night Aunt Rebecca Hoskins was sitting by her fire thinking aggrieved thoughts about the inconsiderateness of nieces who were asked to supper and never turned up, when she was startled by a neighbor, who burst in, exclaiming, “Have you heard about Sandy Pengelly, then, Mrs. Hoskins? Terrible thing, poor little soul, and they don’t know if she’s likely to live. Police have got the truck driver that hit her – ah, it didn’t ought to be allowed, speeding through the place like that at umpty miles an hour, they ought to jail him – not that that’d be any comfort to poor Bert and Jean.” Horrified, Aunt Rebecca put on a coat and went down to her brother’s house. She found the family with white shocked faces; Bert and Jean were about to drive off to the hospital where Sandy had been taken, and the twins were crying bitterly. Lob was nowhere to be seen. But Aunt Rebecca was not interested in dogs; she did not inquire about him. “Thank the Lord, you’ve come, Beck,” said her brother. “Will you stay the night with Don and the twins? Don’s out looking for Lob, and heaven knows when we’ll be back; we may get a bed with Jean’s mother in Plymouth.” “Oh, if only I’d never invited the poor child,” wailed Mrs. Hoskins. But Bert and Jean hardly heard her. That night seemed to last forever. The twins cried themselves to sleep. Don came home very late and grim-faced. Bert and Jean sat in the waiting room of the Western Counties Hospital, but Sandy was unconscious, they were told, and she remained so. All that could be done for her was done. She was given transfusions to replace all the blood she had lost. The broken bones were set and put in slings and cradles. “Is she a healthy girl? Has she a good constitution?” the emergency doctor asked. “Aye, Doctor, she is that,” Bert said hoarsely. The lump in Jean’s throat prevented her from answering; she merely nodded. “Then she ought to have a chance. But I conceal from you that her condition is very serious, unless she shows signs of coming out from this coma.” But as hour succeeded hour, Sandy showed no signs of recovering consciousness. Her parents sat in the waiting room with haggard faces; sometimes one of them would go to telephone the family at home, or to try to get a little sleep at the home of Granny Pearce, not far away. At noon next day Dr. and Mrs. Travers went to the Pengelly cottage to inquire how Sandy was doing, but the report was gloomy: “Still in a very serious condition.” The twins were miserably unhappy. They forgot that they had sometimes called their elder sister bossy and only remembered how often she had shared her pocket money with them, how she read to them and took them for picnics and helped with their homework. Now there was no Sandy, no

Mother and Dad, Don went around with a gray, shuttered face, and worse still, there was no Lob. The Western Counties Hospital is a large one, with dozens of different departments and five or six connected buildings, each with three or four entrances. By that afternoon it became noticeable that a dog seemed to have taken up position outside the hospital, with the fixed intention of getting in. Patiently he would try first one entrance, and then another, all the way around, and then begin again. Sometimes he would a little way inside, following a visitor, but animals were of course forbidden, and he was always kindly but firmly turned out again. Sometimes the guard at the main entrance gave him a pat or offered him a bit of sandwich – he looked so wet and beseeching and desperate. No one seemed to own him or to know where he came from; Plymouth is a large city, and he might have belonged to anybody. At tea time, Granny Pearce came through the pouring rain to bring a flask of hot tea to her daughter and son-in-law. Just as she reached the main entrance, the guard was gently but forcibly shoving out a large, agitated, soaking wet Alsatian dog. “No, old fellow, you cannot come in. hospitals are for people, not for dogs.” “Why, bless me,” exclaimed old Mrs. Pearce. “That’s Lob! Here, Lob! Lobby Boy!” Lob ran to her, whining. Mrs. Pearce walked up to the desk. “I’m sorry, madam, you can’t bring that dog in here,” the guard said. Mrs. Pearce was a very determined old lady. She looked the porter in the eye. “Now, see here, young man. That dog has walked twenty miles from St. Killan to get to my granddaughter. Heaven knows how he knew she was here, but it’s plain he knows. And he ought to have his rights! He ought to get to see her! Do you know,” she went on, bristling, “that dog has walked the length of England – twice – to be with that girl? And you think you can keep him out with your fiddling rules and regulations?” “I’ll have to ask the medical officer,” the guard said weakly. “You do that, young man.” Granny Pearce sat down in a determined manner, shutting her umbrella, and Lob sat patiently dripping at her feet. Every now and then he shook his head, as if to dislodge something heavy that was tied around his neck. Presently a tired, thin, intelligent-looking man in a white coat came downstairs, with an impressive, silver-haired man in a dark suit, and there was a low-voiced discussion. Granny Pearce eyed them, biding her time. “Frankly… not much to lose,” said the older man. The man in the white coat approached Granny Pearce. “It’s strictly against every rule, but as it’s such a serious case were are making an exception.” he said to her quietly. “But only outside her bedroom door – and only for a moment or two.” Without a word, Granny Pearce rose and stumped upstairs. Lob followed close to her skirts, as if he knew his hope lay with her. They waited in the green-floored corridor outside Sandy’s room. The door was half-shut. Bert and Jean were inside. Everything was terribly quiet. A nurse came out. The white coated man asked her something, and she shook her head. She had left the door ajar, and through it could now be seen a high, narrow bed with a lot of gadgets around it. Sandy lay there, very flat under the covers, very still. Her head was turned away. All Lob’s attention was riveted on the bed. He strained toward it, but Granny Pearce clasped his collar firmly. “I’ve done a lot for you, my boy, now you behave yourself,” she whispered grimly. Lob let out a faint whine, anxious and pleading.

At the sound of that whine, Sandy stirred just a little. She sighed and moved her head right over. Her eyes opened, looking at the door. “Lob?” she murmured – no more than a breath of sound. “Lobby boy?” The doctor by Granny Pearce drew a quick, sharp breath. Sandy moved her left arm – the one that was not broken – from below the covers and let her hand dangle down, feeling, as she always did in the mornings, for Lob’s furry head. The doctor nodded slowly. “All right,” he whispered. “Let him go to the bedside. But keep hold of him.” Granny Pearce and Lob moved to the bedside. Now she could see Bert and Jean, white faced and shocked, on the far side of the bed. But she didn’t look at them. She looked at the smile of her granddaughter’s face as the groping fingers found Lob’s wet ears and gently pulled them. “Good boy,” whispered Sandy, and fell asleep again. Granny Pearce led Lob out into the passage again. There she let go of him, and he ran off swiftly down the stairs. She would have followed him, but Bert and Jean had come out of the passage, and she spoke to Bert fiercely. “I don’t know why you were so foolish as not to bring the dog before! Leaving him to find the way here himself –” “But, Mother!” said Pengelly. “That can’t have been Lob. What a chance to take! Supposed Sandy hadn’t –” She stopped, with her handkerchief pressed to her mouth. “Not Lob? I’ve known that dog nine years! I suppose I ought to know my own granddaughter’s dog?” “Listen, Mother,” said Bert. “Lob was killed by the same truck that hit Sandy. Don found him – when he went to look for Sandy’s schoolbag. He was – he was dead. Ribs all smashed. No question of that. Don told me on the phone – he and Will Hoskins rowed a half mile out to sea and sank the dog with a lump of concrete tied to his collar. Poor old boy. Still – he was getting on. Couldn’t have lasted forever.” “Sank him at sea? Then what –?” Slowly old Mrs. Pearce, and then the other two, turned to look at the trail of drippingwet footprints that let down the hospital stairs. In the Pengelly’s garden they have a stone, under the palm tree. It says: “Lob, Sandy’s dog. Buried at sea.”

II. Summary Sandy Pengelly gets acquainted with a large and bouncy young Alsatian ar German shepherd named Lob. Mr. Dodsworth, the owner of the dog, is taking a vacation at the fishing village where Sandy lives with her parents. Sandy and Lob become such good friends that a week after the dog and its owner go homw the Pengelly family is surprised to see the dog back worn, dusty and injured. Mr. Dodsworth offers the dog to the family since it is evident that Lob prefers to be with the Pengelly family. One evening, Jean Pengelly asked Sandy to go to the house of her Aunt Rebecca, who was lonesome, to comfort her. Sandy wanted to take Lob with her but Jean didn’t allow her because Aunt Becky didn’t like dogs. Sandy prepared herself and went to her aunt’s house. Unexpectedly, while on her way to Aunt Becky’s cottage, she was hit by the truck.

Dr. Travers was driving when his wife notice a body of a child on the wall. The doctor stopped his car. The couple was shocked when they saw child, who was hit by the truck. Mrs. Travers went into the cottage to call for an ambulance while the doctor tried to stop the bleeding. Then in a few minutes, an ambulance wailed down the hill. Dr. Travers went to the police station to report what had happen while the rest brought Sandy to the Western Counties hospital. While Aunt Rebecca was waiting for Sandy, a neighbor told her about the accident happened to her niece. Shocked by what she had heard, she went down to her brother’s house to tell of what had happened. Then, they went to the hospital. The doctor said that Sandy was in a serious condition because of the broken bones and the lost blood. The family was crying. Sandy remained unconscious. Her parents sat in the waiting room. Sometimes, one of them would go to tell the family at home the news, or to get a little sleep at Granny Pearce house. Granny Pearce decided to bring tea to her daughter and son-in-law. When she reached the hospital’s gate, she saw the guard forcibly shoving out a dog. Mrs. Granny thought that the dog was her granddaughter’s pet so that she talked the guard to allow the dog entered the hospital. Even it’s against to the rules and regulations of the hospital, the management allowed the dog to enter the hospital just for a short period of time. Then, they went to the Sandy’s room. The dog stayed outside the room. Lob let out a faint whine. Unexpectedly, Sandy moved her head, opened her eyes and called her dog’s name. Because of what happened, the doctor let the dog be in the patient’s bedside. Sandy touched Lob’s ears and then she fell asleep again. Granny let go of Lob. The dog ran away. She would have followed the dog, but her daughter and son-in-law had come out, and she talked to them. Sandy’s parents told the old woman that the dog was not her granddaughter’s pet because Lob was killed by the same truck that hit Sandy. Then, they thought that the soul of Lob just took place to other dog’s body and he went in the hospital to help Sandy to recover from the accident. III. Educational Implication: In the first part of Lob’s girl, Sandy meets Lob and the dog becomes a part of Sandy’s everyday life. In the second part, Sandy and Lob meet an accident and Lob plays a major role in Sandy’s recovery. This story shows that a dog, as well as other animals, has really emotions towards human. They are not just animals that have no feelings but they are really affected of what happened to their environment. This story should be taught to students because it really gives lessons like giving importance to the animals. We should love them just like humans. We should give care to them as we care to our loved ones. And we should appreciate every little thing they do to us. We could see in Pengelly’s family that they didn’t lose hope even though the chance of Sandy’s recovery was very little. And this tells the readers that we should not lose our hopes in every struggle that came to our life. We should always have our faith or God and everything would be fine.

MOUNTAIN STORY

I.

Unknown Mountain Story "A son and his father were walking on the mountains. Suddenly, his son falls, hurts himself and screams: "AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" To his surprise, he hears the voice repeating, somewhere in the mountain: "AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" Curious, he yells: "Who are you?" He receives the answer: "Who are you?" And then he screams to the mountain: "I admire you!" The voice answers: "I admire you!" Angered at the response, he screams: "Coward!" He receives the answer: "Coward!" He looks to his father and asks: "What's going on?" The father smiles and says: "My son, pay attention." Again the man screams: "You are a champion!" The voice answers: "You are a champion!" The boy is surprised, but does not understand. Then the father explains: "People call this ECHO, but really this is LIFE. It gives you back everything you say or do. Our life is simply a reflection of our actions. If you want more love in the world, create more love in your heart. If you want more competence in your team, improve your competence. This relationship applies to everything, in all aspects of life; Life will give you back everything you have given to it." YOUR LIFE IS NOT A COINCIDENCE. IT'S A REFLECTION OF YOU!"

II.

Summary A son and his father were walking on the mountains. Suddenly, his son falls from the mountains. He screamed and heard a voice that also screaming. He asked the people who owns the voice but it still repeats what he says. Still he tries to talk to the voice but again it still repeat what he have says. The boy didn’t understand what’s happening so the father explains it to his son. The father says that the voice that he heard is just an echo of his voice; his father added that it is life. It is just give us back what we say or do. Our life is simply a reflection of our actions. Life just returns us what we have given to it.

III.

Educational Implication I will teach this story that I have read for my future student because it has a lesson that can use in their life. They can apply the story to their own life. By this story they can learn that they are the one who will be responsible in their life. They will always

remember that the things that they do can affect their lives. Example is when they know that if they will study hard and finish their studies they can have a stable life they will pursue to get that goal. They will learn that “LIFE IS A REFLECTION OF WHAT WE ARE.” I. THE

BET

Anton Chechov It was a dark autumn night. The old banker was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he had given in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party and a lot for interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital punishment. They found it obsolete and immoral as a means of punishment. Some of them thought that capital punishment should be replaced by life imprisonment. “I’don’t agree with you,”said the host “I myself had experienced neither the capital punishment nor life imprisonment, but in my opinion capital punishment is more moral and more humane than imprisonment. Execution kills instantly; life imprisonment kills by degrees. Who is the more humane executioner – one who kills you in few seconds or one who draws the life out of you incessantly, for years?” “They’re both equally immoral,” remarked one of the guests, because they’re purpose is the same, to take away life. The State is not God. It has no right to take away that which cannot give back even if they wished to.” Among the company was a lawyer, a young man of about twenty-five. On being asked his opinion, he said: “Capital punishment and life imprisonment are equally immoral; but if I were offered the choice between them, I would certainly choose the second. Its better to live somehow than not to live at all.” “It’s a lie. I bet you two millions yo8u wouldn’t stay in a cell even for five years.” “If you mean it seriously,” replied the lawyer,”Then ill bet stay not five, but fifteen.” “Fifteen! Done!” cried the banker. ”Gentleman, I stake two millions.” “Agreed. You stake two millions, I my freedom, “said the lawyer. So this wild, ridiculous bet came to pass. The agreement obliged the lawyer to remain exactly fifteen years from twelve o’clock of November 14,1870,to twelve o’clock of November 14,1885.The least attempt on his part to violate the conditions, to escape if only for two minutes before time, released the banker from the obligation to pay him the two millions. And how the banker, pacing from corner to corner, recalled all this and asked himself: “Why did I make this bet? What’s the good? The lawyer looses fifteen years of his life and I throw away two millions .Will not convinced people that capital punishment is worse or better than imprisonment for life?No,not!All stuff and nonsense. On my part, it was the caprice of a well-fed man; on the lawyers’ pure greed for gold.” The banker recalled all this, and thought. “Tomorrow at twelve o’clock he receives his freedom. Under the agreement, I shall have to pay him two millions. If I pay, It’s all over with me .I am ruined forever …” “That cursed bet,”murmured the old man, clutching his head in despair. “Why didn’t the man die? He’s only forty years old. He will take away my last farthing, marry, enjoy life, and I will look on like an envious beggar. No it’s too much! The only escape from bankruptcy and disgrace- is that the man should die.”

The clock has just struck three. In the darkness the banker cautiously tore the seals from the door and put the key into lock. The rusty lock gave a hoarse groan and the door creaked. After three minutes, he made up his mind to enter. Before a table sat a man, quite unlike an ordinary human being. He was a skeleton ,with a tight-drawn skin, with long curly hair like a woman’s and shaggy beard .The hand upon which he leaned his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was painful to look upon. On the table, before his bended head, lay a sheet of paper on which something was written in a tiny hand. “Poor devil,” thought the banker, he’s asleep and probably seeing millions in his dreams. I have only to take and throw this half-dead thing on the bed, smother him a moment with the pillow, and the most careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death. But first, let us read what he had written here.” The banker took the sheet from the table and read: “Tomorrow at twelve o’clock midnight I shall obtain my freedom and the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see the sun, I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own clear conscience and before God who sees me I declare to you that I despise freedom, life, health and all that your books call the blessings of the world.” “For fifteen years I have diligently studied earthly life. True, I saw neither the earth nor the people, but in your books I climbed the summits of Elbruz and Mont Blanc and saw the sun rose in the morning, and in the evening suffused the sky, the ocean, and the mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw green forests, fields, rivers, lakes, cities.” “Your books gave me wisdom. All that unwearyingly human thought created in the centuries is compressed into a little lump in my skull. I know that I am cleverer than you all.” “And I despise your books; despise all wordily blessings and wisdom. Though you may be proud and wise and beautiful, death will wipe you from the face of the earth like the mice underground. “In order that I may show you in deed my contempt for that by which you live, I waive the two millions which I once dreamed of as paradise, and which I now despise. In order that I may deprive myself of my right to them, I shall come out from here five minutes before the stipulated term, and thus shall violate the agreement.” When he had finished reading, the banker put the sheet on the table, and kissed the head of the strange man, and began to weep. He went out of the door. Never at any other time had he felt such contempt for himself as now. Coming home, he lay down on his bed, but agitation and tears kept him a long time from sleeping.

II. Summary The story “The Bet” is all about (from the title itself)a bet from a banker and a lawyer. They’ve had an argument about “capital punishment”. This argument into a ridiculous bet. They’ve both agreed that the banker would pay the lawyer two million pesos if he will be imprison for fifteen years to be able to prove that capital imprisonment was more immoral than life imprisonment. Because the lawyer believes that” it is better to live somehow than not to live at all.” Then fifteen years came to pass. The banker realized that the bet is a curse .For the reason that he can’t throw away two million that easy. So to escape from bankruptcy he decided to kill

the lawyer before the due date came. But when he is at the moment of killing the lawyer he saw a letter from the table and read it. The content of the letter says that the lawyer despises everything, and he is surrendering his life to God whom is our creator. After reading this the banker repents and cried while he is leaving the room. III. Educational Implication “Man shall not live alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” As a future teacher someday I would like to share this story to my students because I know that this story can help them understand how important words of Gods are. That these words of wisdom can help them in every trial they face in their daily life. It will help them conquer any problem. Nowadays, it is very sad to say that only few of us fed the spiritual aspect of our lives. Lots of people doesn’t know how to read bible, this story may encourage them on reading the holy book. I wanted them to know that we have God everyday in our life. I wanted to strengthen their faith in God. I wanted them also to learn that Capital punishment is really immoral. There is no person who has the rights to take away somebody’s life except from God whom created us.

I.

THE NECKLACE Guy de Maupassant SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE PRETTY AND CHARMING GIRLS BORN, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family. Their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, is their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest woman in the land. She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings. When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken. She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after. She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

*** One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand. "

Here's something for you," he said.

S

wiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:

“The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th." Instead of being delighted, as her-husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring: “What do you want me to do with this?" “Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big people there." She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?" He had not thought about it; he stammered: “Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me...." He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. “What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" he faltered. But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:

“Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall." He was heart-broken. Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. :What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?"

She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the careful-minded clerk. At last she replied with some hesitation: “I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs." He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays. n

Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really ice dress with the money."

The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her: “What's the matter with you? You've been very odd for the last three days." “I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear," she replied. "I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party." Wear flowers," he said. "They're very smart at this time of the year. For ten francs you could get two or three gorgeous roses." She was not convinced. “No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women." “How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband. "Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that." She uttered a cry of delight. “That's true. I never thought of it." Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble. Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said: "Choose, my dear."

First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking: "Haven't you anything else?" "Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like best." Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetousIy. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself. Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish: "Could you lend me this, just this alone?" "Yes, of course. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her. She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart. She left about four o'clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time. He threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball-dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs. Loisel restrained her. "Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to fetch a cab." But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended-the staircase. When they were out in the street they could not find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance. They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they found on the quay one of those old nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.

It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked up to their own apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the office at ten. She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer round her neck! "What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already half undressed. She turned towards him in the utmost distress. "I . . . I . . . I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace. . . ." He started with astonishment. "What! . . . Impossible!" They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They could not find it. "Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?" he asked. "Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry." "But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall." "Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?" "No. You didn't notice it, did you?" "No." They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again. "I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I can't find it." And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought. Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing. He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.

She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful catastrophe. Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered nothing. "You must write to your friend," he said, "and tell her that you've broken the clasp of her necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to look about us." She wrote at his dictation. *** By the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had aged five years, declared: "We must see about replacing the diamonds." Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the jewellers whose name was inside. He consulted his books. "It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied the clasp." Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace like the first, consulting their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of mind. In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand. They begged the jeweller not tO sell it for three days. And they arranged matters on the understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first one were found before the end of February. Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He intended to borrow the rest. He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing it he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs. When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice:

"You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it." She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief? *** Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof. She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money. Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained. Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopence-halfpenny a page. And this life lasted ten years. At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer's charges and the accumulation of superimposed interest. Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which she had been so beautiful and so much admired. What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels. Who knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save! One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to freshen herself after the labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive. Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up to her. "Good morning, Jeanne." The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly addressed by a poor woman. "But . . . Madame . . ." she stammered. "I don't know . . . you must be making a mistake." "No . . . I am Mathilde Loisel." Her friend uttered a cry. "Oh! . . . my poor Mathilde, how you have changed! . . ." "Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows . . . and all on your account." "On my account! . . . How was that?" "You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the Ministry?" "Yes. Well?" "Well, I lost it." "How could you? Why, you brought it back." "I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You realise it wasn't easy for us; we had no money. . . . Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed." Madame Forestier had halted. "You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?" "Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike." And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness. Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands. "Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs! . . . "

II. Summary Madam Loisel thinks that she is one of those women who were devastated by fate. She thinks that even the person she marries with was just a plain husband who works as a clerk in an office. He marries this man because she had no what so called “choice”, for a woman like her no man who is very luxurious will not commit a faithful love and affection to her that’s why she marries this person who she thinks is the only person she deserves. Madam Loisel pity her self and his husband because of having no money. Until one time his husband surprised her, he was invited for a dinner ball and he wants to bring his wife with him. But, madam Loisel got anxiously angry and she asked her husband that how can she go to that party when she had no beautiful and elegant dress to wear. Because of this, her husband asks her “how much would it cost to buy a dress?”, then she uttered that it may cost about 400 hundred francs. Upon hearing this, her husband got dismayed because it is the exact amount he saved to buy a gun. He had been hopping to a hunter this upcoming summer but he has nothing to do so he gave that money to his wife to buy for a new dress. Few days to count and the party day will come but Madam Loisel was still sad and anxious. Her husband noticed it he asks her “ what’s wrong?” Madam Loisel answered him that she don’t want to come to the party anymore even if her dress is already done. Her husband asks her again” why?” she answered it again and said “she don’t have jewelries to wear at the party” her husband tell her to wear flowers and yet she said “there is no more humiliating than to have a shobby air in the midst of the rich women. Her husband asks her to borrow a jewelry to her friend named Mrs. Forestier. So the next day she went to Mrs. Forestier house to borrow some jewelry as Mrs. Forestier told her to choose from those jewelries the necklace composed of diamonds caught her attention so she lends it to Mrs. Forestier. The night came and then she wear the clothe she buy and the diamond necklace she borrows she really really made a difference that night she was really beautiful and many men asks for her name and even asks her to have a dance with them. She danced all along and enjoyed. Around 4 in the morning when she and her husband went home. As they were inside their house she noticed that the necklace she borrow from Mrs. Frostier was lost. So she and his husband try to search for it. Unfortunately, they were unable to find for it. So they go for different jewelers to purchase a new one exactly for what she borrows. They find a necklace which was very look the same as the necklace and it cost almost thirty six thousand francs. They lend money from different people and even in different institutions without knowing how to pay all those debts. They buy that necklace and returned it to Mrs. Forstier. They pay the bdebt for almost 10 years by being a slave. After 10 years Madam Loisel and Mrs. Forstier saw each other again, but Mrs. Forstier even don’t know her because she changed a lot on her physical looks and she said that she worked as a slave to different people just to buy a replacement for the loss diamond necklace. Only to found out that the necklace that was lost was just an imitation that cost about 5 thousands francs.

III. Educational Implications The story “ the necklace” is a good example of a story which is need to be taught to the teenagers or most probably those who are in adolescents period because from this story they can

learn that they must a live a simple life and to accept their mistakes. They can also learn to be honest and to tell what is really the truth and learn how to face the consequences for the mistakes they have done.

I. THE LAST LEAF O. Henry In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places." These "places" make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account! So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony." At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio. "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street "Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted. That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places." Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer. But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house. One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, gray eyebrow. "She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer. " And that chance is for her to want to live. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly. Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?" "She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.

"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?" "A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind." "Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten." After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp. Then she swaggered into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime. Johnsy lay, scarcely making a ripple under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. Sue stopped whistling, thinking she was asleep. She arranged her board and began a pen-and-ink drawing to illustrate a magazine story. Young artists must pave their way to Art by drawing pictures for magazine stories that young authors write to pave their way to Literature. As Sue was sketching a pair of elegant horseshow riding trousers and a monocle of the figure of the hero, an Idaho cowboy, she heard a low sound, several times repeated. She went quickly to the bedside. Johnsy's eyes were open wide. She was looking out the window and counting counting backward. "Twelve," she said, and little later "eleven"; and then "ten," and "nine"; and then "eight" and "seven", almost together. Sue look solicitously out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks. "What is it, dear?" asked Sue. "Six," said Johnsy, in almost a whisper. "They're falling faster now. Three days ago there were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now." "Five what, dear? Tell your Sudie."

"Leaves. On the ivy vine. When the last one falls I must go, too. I've known that for three days. Didn't the doctor tell you?" "Oh, I never heard of such nonsense," complained Sue, with magnificent scorn. "What have old ivy leaves to do with your getting well? And you used to love that vine so, you naughty girl. Don't be a goosey. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were - let's see exactly what he said - he said the chances were ten to one! Why, that's almost as good a chance as we have in New York when we ride on the street cars or walk past a new building. Try to take some broth now, and let Sudie go back to her drawing, so she can sell the editor man with it, and buy port wine for her sick child, and pork chops for her greedy self." "You needn't get any more wine," said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. "There goes another. No, I don't want any broth. That leaves just four. I want to see the last one fall before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too." "Johnsy, dear," said Sue, bending over her, "will you promise me to keep your eyes closed, and not look out the window until I am done working? I must hand those drawings in by to-morrow. I need the light, or I would draw the shade down." "Couldn't you draw in the other room?" asked Johnsy, coldly. "I'd rather be here by you," said Sue. "Beside, I don't want you to keep looking at those silly ivy leaves." "Tell me as soon as you have finished," said Johnsy, closing her eyes, and lying white and still as fallen statue, "because I want to see the last one fall. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves." "Try to sleep," said Sue. "I must call Behrman up to be my model for the old hermit miner. I'll not be gone a minute. Don't try to move 'til I come back." Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a Michael Angelo's Moses beard curling down from the head of a satyr along with the body of an imp. Behrman was a failure in art. Forty years he had wielded the brush without getting near enough to touch the hem of his Mistress's robe. He had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. For several years he had painted nothing except now and then a daub in the line of commerce or advertising. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists in the colony who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who scoffed terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as especial mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists in the studio above. Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of juniper berries in his dimly lighted den below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years

to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker. Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings. "Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der brain of her? Ach, dot poor leetle Miss Yohnsy." "She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr. Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't. But I think you are a horrid old - old flibbertigibbet." "You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go away. Gott! yes." Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the hermit miner on an upturned kettle for a rock. When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade. "Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper. Wearily Sue obeyed. But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last one on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, with its serrated edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it hung bravely from the branch some twenty feet above the ground. "It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and I shall die at the same time." "Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What would I do?"

But Johnsy did not answer. The lonesomest thing in all the world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its mysterious, far journey. The fancy seemed to possess her more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to friendship and to earth were loosed. The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves. When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised. The ivy leaf was still there. Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas stove. "I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring a me a little broth now, and some milk with a little port in it, and - no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook." And hour later she said: "Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples." The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left. "Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win." And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is - some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more comfortable." The next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger. You won. Nutrition and care now - that's all." And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay, contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woollen shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all. "I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was ill only two days. The janitor found him the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and - look out

the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece - he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell."

II. Summary Living in early 20th century Greenwich Village are two young women artists, Sue and Johnsy. They met in May, six months previously, and decided to share a studio apartment. Stalking their artist colony in November is "Mr. Pneumonia." The story begins as Johnsy, near death from pneumonia, lies in bed waiting for the last leaf of an ivy vine on the brick wall she spies through her window to fall. "I’m tired of thinking," says Johnsy. "I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves". However, an unexpected hero arrives to save Johnsy. It’s not the brusque doctor who gives her only one in ten chances to survive, raising them to one in five if Sue can get her to hope for something important like a man, not her true desire to "paint the Bay of Naples some day" Mr. Behrman, an old man who lives in the apartment below Sue and Johnsy, who enjoys drinking, works sometimes as an artist’s model, and as yet has made no progress over the past 40 years on painting his own masterpiece, becomes in typical O. Henry fashion the hero. The evidence of his heroics are found the day before he dies from pneumonia: outside Johnsy’s window are a ladder, a lantern still lighted "some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it . . . it’s Behrman’s masterpiece--he painted it [a leaf] there the night that the last leaf fell", Sue informs Johnsy. III. Educational implication There are two interesting things I found in this story in addition to the general theme of death and dying. First, there is the ambiguity surrounding the relationship of the two women. I believe that they may have been lovers, but it was something that the author only felt comfortable hinting at. Second, I’ve been fascinated for years about the number of persons, especially among the "house cases" I’ve seen on rounds, who have been cared for by neighbors. In this story, the neighbor, Mr. Behrman, makes the ultimate sacrifice through his neighborly caregiving. I’m convinced that there are many persons whose lives are saved or at least the quality of their lives are significantly improved by caring acts of friends and neighbors. In the recent days, many students frustrated in their failing grades and because of that they are losing their hopes by it. This literature tells that every single day or even an hour is so important. You must live your life to the fullest and meaningful. You are the only one who can do

it and not by others. Always think on the positive side and that’s the only thing that you can do by your own self.

I. ANOTHER

MAN’S FOLLY

Nisha Malhotra A mother is devastated, she is howling with pain, yelling all she can in that dark and dingy corner of her four by four kholi. There was nobody to hear her yell and not a soul to pacify her, because outside her shack is a long winding lonely road. There was no existence of mankind for miles and miles ahead. The wind was at rest, the leaves didn’t rustle and no resonance of a barking dog, silence filled the air. Loneliness was already killing her, but no one knows what made her cry? Losing something you love with all your heart isn’t really the grief you can ever overcome. Radha lost her baby. Her only means to live. She saw her child getting crushed under a car in front of her own eyes. Blood was all over and the accident was terrible. One lonely night, she was walking down the street to get a breath of fresh air with her child cuddled tight in her arms. She walked a long time s till she saw the face of mankind (in the evilest form). The whole time she walked with her child in her arms the only thing that worried her was Aryans (her son’s) future. What kind of a person will he be? Will he make me proud? How much light is life going to bring in his existence? She was imagining and feeling every day of the Childs growth, and what she had in store for him. But who knows what’s in store for us tomorrow, life can change in the splits of a second. Talk about destiny, all those dreams hopes and expectations were snatched away from her in an instant. Her smiles were frowns and her faith just crumbled, like a deal soul in a living, rather breathing body. This is how it happened…. On that abandoned road, were a few streetlights barely sufficient? There was this one light that was visible from a distance, but as it came closer it got brighter and brighter. That light changed Radha’s life into darkness forever. A speeding car came down that road, as if the driver had jammed the accelerator, cutting across the wind. He came at a speek of 110kmph throwing beer bottles out of his half open window. He was definitely drunk, the speed took everything in its path. Just then, there was a loud cry, and silence set in again. The cry of a baby and no sight of a child.

Ironically the mother wasn’t hurt, not a scratch on a body, not a bruise on her arm. She opened her eyes and didn’t she Aryan, her vision was blur. After a few minutes when her sight cleared up she looked all over frantically for her baby, but alas! There was nothing. Just then she noticed something about then feet away it was blood draining into the gutter’s, and pieces of minced flesh, laying there saying so much without saying anything at all. The blood of her baby, the child who hadn’t even seen life, He paid the price for another man’s folly. The same little child whose future was just being planned. Simple, don’t drink and drive. You could take a life, but kill a number of people.

II. Summary: Another Man’s Folly is about Radha and her baby named Aryan. As a typical mother, Radha loved her son so much that she’s willing to give everything for him. All she wanted was to give her son the best life she could ever give. A mother who had nothing to think of but of his sons future. But one evening, an accident ended all of her dreams for his child. She was walking with Aryan on his loving arms when a speeding car came. Devastated, she was looking for her child and suddenly saw him feet away from her—dead.

III. Educational Implications: Every person has their value—may not to you but to other people. So as a person, the only thing that we can consider is the importance of other people, and that, we should always be careful of our actions. It may be benefited to oneself but think of how it will affect others. Like the car driver in this story, he was drunk and yet—he still had the courage to drive, and did not realize that because of his action, there was one life gone but actually two people died—the child’s life and the mothers soul. Children were naturally born as self-centred person. They tend to live only for themselves and do not care about the others. But how was this nurtured? Then its time for us, teachers—as their second parent—to guide them through life. Let us be their instrument to realize something that they need to. As early as now, students must realize that one single step can affect another deeply— may not be physically but mentally and emotionally. They should learn to be careful in their plans toward life because humans are made to live for others. Without them, life means nothing.

I.

TIME, AGAIN Tim Maly

Before we met, you showed me your diary. I must confess that I am still confused by this sequence of events, as, I imagine, you must be confused by my decision to leave your life so suddenly. I've gone over everything in my head time and time again and I can't shake the feeling that, somehow, everything got mixed up. Though this may seem a flimsy reason to you, it is reason enough for me. I don't understand, so I'm going to leave. Before we met, you showed me your diary and then we were having sex on the wooden floor of your living room. I still remember the way the plants filtered the sunlight and the sound of the tea kettle building up steam. Then our son was at the foot of the bed, asking me where you'd gone. "I don't know," I told him, "I expect she'll be back soon." Today I went into your study and found that you'd converted it into a gallery. The first photo of every roll of film we'd ever had developed was there, somewhere. I found that I could date every one, even the ones that hadn't happened yet. They seemed to go on forever, a jumbled mess of happy memories, each one partially obscured by blinding white light. I knocked over a jar full of tacks but when I went to pick them up I was overcome with vertigo and I had to leave. We were making desperate love in your basement when you told me about spacetime. You said that the future is just as real as the past. You told me that just because you aren't there yet doesn't mean it isn't real. You said it was like Baghdad still being real when you're in London . You talked about personal time and light cones and folding space and I didn't understand

anything except the way that your breasts moved and the way your breath misted in the cold. Then we were on a roller coaster and you were screaming and you said, "This is what it's going to be like all the time." A balloon seller lost hold of his wares and they floated majestically into the sky. It was beautiful. After you introduced yourself, we resumed our date and I asked you again why you'd chosen a drive-in. You told me that you had a special soft spot in your heart for B-movies. You said that there was something endearing about the earnestness of it all. You said that they called out to our imaginations in a way that big budget films can no longer achieve. You said that all science fiction - no matter how dismal - was optimistic in that it assumed that there would be a future at all. We were in a board room and you were explaining to the assembled group of investors about the Machine. They were smiling and nodding. They didn't really understand but experts had told them that your idea showed promise and, after all, a war was on. The coffee tasted terrible and I kept fidgeting in my seat. You were radiant. No one thought to ask what would happen if the Machine broke. Today, I watched an egg assemble itself on the kitchen floor. It made a strange popping noise as the last bit of eggshell attached itself. It flew into the air up and up and then came to rest on the counter. A helicopter roared overhead and our son came in and told me he was scared. I didn't know what to tell him. The war has begun and no one can say how or when it will end. I remember your reaction when you read this letter. I remember how the last line, where I say "we weren't meant to live like this," brought a tear to your eye and you turned to our son and tried to explain to him that I was gone. But how could you explain? What does 'gone' mean to a child his age? Then we were lying together under the stars and when the first fireworks went off, you leaned over and kissed me for the first time. You tasted like popcorn. I can't blame you for choosing a new husband. When you finally came back, you were younger. That was the hardest for both of us, I think. We didn't share the same memories anymore. You held me and told me that it would be alright, that you had hardly changed but I think that we both know now that that wasn't true at all. Time changed people. That's how it worked. Today, I went down to the basement and stared at the Machine. I can still remember the day you turn it on. You'll stand in front of a crowd of reporters with our son and your new husband at your side and you'll give your speech about the tyranny of time and death and the triumph of science and about setting us free. But inside, you'll be thinking, "I wish he had been here to see this." I know this because, before we met, you showed me your diary and you wrote about this day. How could you not? It was the most important day of your life. You saved us from the enemy and ended the war. You asked me to stop it. There's nothing I can do. The future is just as real as the past. There is no before or after anymore. Because of you, there never was. We weren't meant to live like this.

II. Summary: This short story tells about the confession of a heartbroken man. Moreover, how a happy family became apart wherein love is not present anymore. The husband itself retells and showed his feelings by means of this letter to his beloved wife. He also tells the reasons why the two of them (her wife) and his son become disclose to each other and how it is very hard to accept the real fact on his side.

III. Educational Implication: I do understand from this short story that family must have a bound of love and understanding in order to stay put together no matter what. We must also accept the real situation no matter how hard it is and learn how to move on and be strong enough to face the consequences in life. PHILIPPINE NORMAL UNIVERSITY Taft Avenue, Manila College of Education

ADOLESCENT’S LITERATURE

Submitted to:

Prof. Celia Malagueňo Submitted by: 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34